Life's Cruel
by Sister of Gallifrey
Summary: Dean finds himself in a fight for his life and he's losing. He realizes that life isn't just unfair, it's also very cruel. Dean/Benny


**Hi! So I got this request some time ago from FallenAngel2487 to write a Denny fic where Dean was in trouble and well this came to my mind ;)**

**I'm not all that happy about how it turned out so I might write something later to make it up for that, maybe a second chapter?**

**Anyway here it is. Warnings for blood... blood and blood. M/M ^^ Please enjoy! :D**

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Dean ran. He ran as fast as his legs could move and for as long as his breath could carry him. His heart was beating in his head and his body was screaming in agony. He had been running for miles now even though it felt far longer for him. He'd run for hours but his attackers didn't falter. He could still feel their ice cold breaths in his neck, scratching his skin like the fingers of Death.

The deep dark forest was a prison, trapping him within it with no way out. No matter how long he ran the trees weren't getting fewer. His phone was out signal so calling for Sammy was no option.

He couldn't understand how this could happen. It was supposed to be an easy task. Some Valkyries roaming a small town in northern USA. A single headshot with hail mixed with the blood of raven was supposed to work and well it did, in the beginning but as he shot the third and last one she just laughed at him. And from the shadows a gigantic wolf had emerged. The beast had thick black fur and burning red eyes. It was bigger than a bear with teeth bigger and sharper than any knife in Dean's arsenal.

Dean had barely had time to load before the beast was over him. He managed to drive the muzzle of the gun right into the wolf's mouth and pull the trigger. The beast let out a small moan and backed away a little, enough for Dean to get up on his feet. He'd thought that he'd gotten that dog but he was deadly wrong. The dog shook his head and then turned his gaze towards Dean with even bigger fury than he'd had before.

The woman laughed sardonically and crossed her arms over her chest. "Dean Winchester," she said with a mesmerizingly beautiful but deadly voice. "Did you really think a simple gunshot could kill the great Fenris?"

Dean threw a quick dangerous look at the woman, trying to keep his cool even though it was quite hard to do so when you're staring into predatory teeth, longer than your forearm and stronger than diamond. "No, but I gather ripping him apart will."

The woman let out another scornful laugh. "None of the mighty gods of Valhalla could kill him Dean, why would you be able to?"

Dean let a wry smile for on his face. "Because I killed most of the mighty gods of Valhalla," he said.

He had thought that that would make the women loose her wits but we was wrong, she just smiled wider. "Yes you did... And you're also the reason to why his father died. He loved his father Dean. And by killing those gods you have nothing that stands between him and you," she said.

Dean felt a coldness spread through his spine as he looked upon the gigantic wolf circling him.

"My advice to you Mr. Winchester…. Is run."

Dean considered taking up a fight for a moment but then the wolf stopped right in front of him. Staring down at him, growling with all of his teeth showing. Dean had never felt so short and weak in his entire life and he knew that neither knife nor bullet would ever dig into that skin while that beast barely had to touch him to break him in half.

So Dean threw a quick glance at the grinning woman before he turned and ran, leaving his dignity behind.

Dean knew that the woman and the beast were only playing a game with him. Tiring him out to make his death as much fun as possible because the beast had long enough legs to catch up with him within seconds.

He knew that but he still kept running. A bunny desperately fleeing from a bigger and faster opponent.

He tried to focus on something else than his throbbing pain. Why didn't the iron rods work on that bitch? Well probably because she wasn't a Valkyrie, but who was she then and why was she here? There were a thousand thoughts crossing through his head, but they all disappeared when he felt a hard blow on the left side of his head, forcing him to fall sideways into an evergreen. Every single thought vanished and was replaced by a single thought: I'm going to die.

He tried to hold himself up with support from the tree but the blow to his head had been too hard. He fell to the ground like a doll. His face disappearing into the moss and fir needles.

He tried to turn around but was quickly stopped by a gigantic paw placed on his back. The force pushing him down was so strong he barely could breathe.

He heard the sound of breaking sticks and soon he saw a pair of black boots in front of him. He lifted his head to look into the woman's eyes but he couldn't turn that much. But she helped him by sitting down on her heels. She smiled at him widely. Not a single sign of exhaustion was shone on her face while Dean on the other hand was panting like an idiot.

Even though every muscle in his body was burning and blood dripped down from the gash in his head he looked into her red eyes with as much courage in his gaze he could muster. He realized that the woman before him was someone he would have judged as incredibly beautiful if the situation had been different. She was almost ghostly pale but in an attractive way. Her lips were red as blood and her hair black as sin and hung down her slim body in perfect waves. She looked just as if she was picked from a fairytale. For an instant, in his clouded condition, he thought she maybe was Snow white.

"I'm Hel, daughter of Loki, goddess of the land of the dead," she said as if she'd heard his thoughts. She pulled off her leather glove and Dean took a sharp breath as he saw her hand. It was nothing but bone. No skin, no flesh, no muscles, just bone.

She dragged one of her skeleton fingers up his cheek and caressed his bleeding gash causing him to winch, rather because of the coldness of her touch then because of the pain. She then lifter her finger towards her nose and inhaled the scent of his blood. She gave him another sardonic smile. "Oh I will enjoy taking your life Dean Winchester," she said before she stood up and disappeared from his sight. But he could guess quite well what she was doing because he soon heard the sound of a gigantic tongue licking something over his head.

"You like that Fenris? Well you're welcome for some more," she said and only a few seconds later he felt a hot breath on his neck and a warm, wet tongue licking the blood from the side of his head.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, trying to hide the pain from his voice.

"Well first of all, you're a hunter and you're disturbing my affairs here. And second of all, you're the reason to why our father died. If you and your pathetic little brother hadn't pulled Loki into this then he wouldn't have sacrificed his life for your cause and he would still be alive," she said with a hint of sorrow in her voice.

It took a few moments for Dean to realize that it was Gabriel she was talking about and that Pagan Hotel incident. "It was his choice not ours you dumb bitch and I'm sure as hell he wouldn't want you to kill me."

He heard the sound of a knife being pulled out of its scabbard and suddenly his pulse quickened even more. "I don't care what he would have wanted. He's dead, and it's your fault. Where I come from that gives me the right to kill you," she said and without any warning she knife was suddenly in his shoulder. Blade running straight through and into the ground. He screamed so loud in pain that the birds flew away from their watch posts high up in the trees. He cried and screamed and moaned because he'd never felt a pain so intense in his entire life before. It felt like a cold hand was grabbing and twisting and eating him from the inside, like his own blood was poisonous. This was no ordinary knife wound.

She pulled out the knife and showed it to Dean. It was completely black all through with some hints of green stripes in it. It was shaped like a fang and Dean wouldn't be surprised if it actually was one. "Do you like it? It is forged in hell with the burning souls of torturers. It is pure poison when it touches the flesh of a living. I am of course immune to it since I'm dead and eternal, Fenris won't be affected either when he's eating what's left of your rotting corpse since he's immortal. Oh this is just so beautiful," she practically sung that last bit as she let the knife dig into the same part of his shoulder again. Dean let out another deafening scream which was load enough to cover Hel's manic laughter.

When Dean's screams went over to painful moans Hel stepped over to Fenris and led him away from Dean's body. "Let's watch the human crawl," she said with a laugh. And if Dean hadn't been twitching and turning in pure agony he may have seen that the wolf was grinning too.

His blood was everywhere, in his clothes, all over his skin, the green bed he was lying in had turned a deep red color and somewhere in the back of his head he was wondering how much blood he had left.

He knew he was dying and he knew he should be thinking about his family, about Sam and about Mary, Bobby and John whom he would finally meet again. But his thoughts weren't turned towards them at all and he was kind of ashamed of that. But he couldn't help it, there was only one person he could think about in this dying moment and he didn't even know why.

"Benny," he whispered out in an agonized voice without even noticing it himself.

"Who's Benny? Your boyfriend?" she asked with a distant voice. Dean wondered when she'd moved so far away from him but he soon realized that she hadn't, he was the one slowly drifting away. She said something more but he didn't hear what. The last thing he recalled was how the beast threw himself over him with a loud roar.

The world was spinning around him. If it even was the world, he couldn't be certain. Last time he'd been conscious he'd been drawn to his death.

Nothing could focus before his eyes. Everything was a spinning green smog and the sounds around him were muffled like after an explosion. It was first after a few seconds he started to actually hear something properly and it was also then he was sure of the fact that he was dead.

"Dean, Dean are ya alright?" Dean would recognize that southern drawl anywhere. Benny was here. He was suddenly all that conscious about the knee on which his head was resting and the strong weather bitten hands which were holding his chin up so he could breathe properly and also stroking his honey brown hair in a soothing motion.

Dean opened his mouth to say: "Benny," but his voice seemed to stuck in his all too dry mouth and all he managed to get out from his lips were a muffled sound that sounded more like: "Bnnn" than anything else.

"Ya 'm here brotha," the vampire said with one of those smiles of his in his voice.

Dean tried to focus his sight so that he could see his friend but his eyes were still playing tricks on him and all he could see was a shadow hovering over him. He damned himself for being so weak. Because he knew they had to move soon. Benny was in purgatory and if he was here then so must Dean be. "Help me up, we need to move," he tried to say but once again his voice didn't quite reach all the way out.

"Na, ya need to stay down, brotha. Tha' wound ya got aint looking good," the vampire said and plucked something (Dean guessed it was a stick) away from Dean's hair before he continued stroking him.

"What do you mean? We're in purgatory, we need to move!" Dean was really confused to say the least. He remembered last time he was down here, they'd been running for a whole year, never stopping, never slowing down. Why should they do that now? And why was Dean there to begin with? He was a human, they don't end up in purgatory!

"We're not in purgatory Dean. We're on top. So just relax n' hold on." Dean wondered how the hell Benny even knew what he said because Dean didn't even understand himself with that damn throat stopping every word he was trying to say.

"What? How….?" Nothing made any sense what so ever. Benny was in purgatory, how could he be here? How could Dean still be alive after being attacked by that monster? Was this all just a dream and he would soon wake up in heaven or maybe in his motel room back in "Nowhere town".

"I met up with some Valkyries down in Purgatory, they told me a story about how Dean Winchester had met them on earth and how Hel and Fenris would kill ya. Of course I couldn't let tha happen so I searched… for days I searched for a human to take me back on top and at last I found one. The Valkyries had given me the location of their deaths after some encouragement from me of course and after that it was easy, all I had to do was follow the scent of ya blood. Lucky me vampires are fast, I managed to get to ya right in time. That beast was about to rip ya'apart. That is the first time ever I am glad about the fact that time goes so much faster in purgatory than it does on earth. If I'd been too slow… If I'd gotten here too late… I would never have forgiven myself."

Dean raised a brow in confusion. Benny was never this open about how he felt. The strong hand in his hair suddenly became painfully present. He had just taken it as a soothing motion but now, now it aroused fear in him. Benny never acted like this, ever.

His vision started to come back and when he finally could see good enough again he saw the vampire looking down on him with tears in his eyes. And everything suddenly became clear to him.

"I'm dying, aren't I?"

Benny bit his lip and nodded. He let out one of his characteristic nervous laughter but this time Dean didn't smile back because he could see the fear in his friend's baby blue eyes.

"Na, it aint looking good Dean. Ya wounds are too severe, ya need to get to a hospital as soon as possible and closest one is too far away. I wouldn't be able to carry ya there in time even if the sun hadn't been creeping up the horizon. I'm sorry Dean, but there's only one way…"

Dean wrinkled his forehead, not understanding what his blood brother was talking about. He was just about to open his mouth to ask when a light lit in his head. _No fucking way! _"You got to be kidding me!" he exclaimed.

Benny's gaze faltered from Dean's eyes to the ground in a kind of ashamed way. "I'm so sorry Dean."

"NO! NO! You're not doing it! I'd rather die!" Dean screamed out with a newfound voice. He tried to fight his way from Benny's grip but he soon realized to his own horror that he couldn't move the rest of his body. Seems like Benny had been right, the wounds were pretty severe.

"Dean please…" Benny started but Dean just wouldn't let him have it.

"No! You're not making me into a… a monster!"

A muscle in Benny's neck twisted under his hard, pale skin and he looked up at Dean again with hurt in his eyes. "Is tha truly how you see me, brotha? A monster?"

The older Winchester brother licked his lips and stared into his friends eyes. "No of course not," he said and meant it. Benny wasn't a monster, Dean had never seen him as one either. Fact was that Benny was probably the most human being he'd ever met, whatever that meant. He remembered now why the vampire had been the last person he'd thought about before he'd blacked out. And he also realized why it was his name he'd cried out. Benny was his friend, his blood brother and a lot more.

Dean really couldn't help it, he'd been raised in a world of supernatural creatures so it really shouldn't be surprising that he would be drawn towards supernatural beings as an adult. He'd been kind of sheltered from his own emotions ever since Cas' betrayal but he's always known that there was something deep inside him that saw Benny from another perspective than the one he allowed himself to see. And now, when he was lying in said vampire's arms with his life running out in the moss his mind was finally allowing him to let those emotions free.

He had thought that he would never get to see Benny again. He had buried the vampire's body in hopes that he would return one day but he never really could make himself believe it, not truly. And now, when he finally could see his sworn ally and friend again he was the one leaving forever. Life wasn't fair, if there was something his whole existence had taught him then that was it, but this was just cruel!

"You could never be a monster," he said and tried to order his arm to raise high enough to stroke the stubble on his brother's jawline. But his hand wouldn't as much as twist. _Yes, definitely cruel. _He hadn't even noticed that he'd started crying before Benny dried his tears away with his index finger. The rough skin of a sailor felt rugged against his cheek, but he liked it. He leaned his head to the side a bit so that the vampire cupped his cheek. Dean pressed his nose into the rough skin and inhaled the smell of forest and salt, he closed his eyes due to the sensation. At the moment he didn't really care if the sailor would hate him for his preference. He was dying and he sure as hell wouldn't miss out his chance to do this.

But Benny didn't hate on him for it. He just chuckled a bit, tears still hearable in his voice. "I didn't know ya swung tha way brotha. Why didn't ya tell me before?" He slid his hand down and grabbed hold of Dean's chin, forcing him to look on him. "Ya humans and ya boundaries," he muttered before he bent down and took the hunter's lips in his own.

Benny's lips were nothing like the soft lips of girls and angels of which Dean was used to. First it felt like he was kissing sandpaper but after a few seconds he realized that it felt more like pulling your hands through the rough splines of wheat, and after a few more seconds he realized that he loved it.

The kiss which had started off rather slow quickly evolved into something more intense and desperate. Dean moaned loudly into the vampire's mouth, but it wasn't enough, he wanted him closer. And therefore he said with a panting voice: "move me to the ground," when they finally broke for air.

Benny didn't need to be told twice. He carefully lifted Dean's head off his lap and down into the soft green bed of nature. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, afraid to hurt the human. But soon his lust was getting too strong and he dropped every thought in his head. He straddled Dean, being careful to not touch the worst wounds. He then took the hunter's head in his hands and once more captured his lips.

This position was so much better. Their mouths had more access to each other and Dean loved the feeling of the vampire's body pressed tightly to his own. It may send a wave of pain through his almost numb body but it also gave him a pleasure he barely could describe.

He wished more than ever that he could move his arms just so he could pull his fingers through that hair and caress those broad shoulders. He didn't give a crap about how unmasculine that may be. He was after all dying.

The vampire moved his rough lips over Deans cheek before he attacked his throat. Dean could hear Benny's breath shiver as his mouth caressed the skin over the hunter's carotid artery. The sailor moaned at the feeling and smell of Deans blood under all that flesh, something that made Dean let out a small laughter of joy and pleasure.

"Damn Dean, ya drive me crazy," the vampire said and backed away a bit.

Dean let out another laugh, not noticing the quiet sound of teeth piercing flesh. And before he knew it Benny's lips were on his again. It took a few seconds for him to notice the metallic taste. The whole feeling of having his vampire this way was rather intoxicating and he probably hadn't noticed a full blown war if it so happened around them. But after a moment the thick moisture had filled all of his mouth and the iron taste of it couldn't escape his senses anymore. His eyes flew open in realization and he tried desperately to spit it out, but Benny wouldn't let him do it. Within seconds the sailor's lips were replaced with a hand over Dean'smouth.

Dean wanted to fight him off, do anything, desperate to get the blood out of his mouth but his body stayed numb and he soon realized that there was no way out of this. He gave his brother in arms one last pleading look which first seemed to have some effect on the vampire because Benny looked away with sadness in his eyes. But that little hope was soon pierced by one simple sentence. "I'm sorry Dean."

The hunter felt a small tear trickle down his cheek as he swallowed the red, poisonous substance. "Why did you do that!?" he screamed out as soon as the blood had disappeared down his throat with a burning pain following it. He wanted to push Benny aside, punch him in the face, but his limbs were still paralyzed.

"You know damn well why I did it Dean. That was the only way. A vampire's DNA may be able to fight the poison inside you and repair your dying body. I couldn't let you die, and there was no other way," Benny answered and wiped away the remains of his own blood from his mouth. But the big gash in his lip were still spitting out new blood.

Dean frown. He barely knew what to feel. He really should be mad at the vampire. He had so many reasons to be furious at him at the moment but he really couldn't. Because deep inside of him he understood. If the roles were changed then he'd done everything and anything to save Benny's life as well. But that didn't make him feel any better about the situation. If he died anyway he would die as a vampire and he knew damn well what that meant… back into purgatory, without any chance to ever meet anyone he'd ever loved again. Life was definitely cruel.

"Take it easy Dean, I will stay with you. I will make you survive this transformation and what comes after that. I won't let you fall back into that place, I promise you," Benny said as if he'd heard Dean's thoughts and maybe he had. He leaned down and gave his brother a tender kiss to show him that even though he'd tricked him the kisses and his emotions were still very true. "And I won't let you become a monster," he added and lifted the hunter up into his arms. He put a hand behind Dean's head and let him nuzzle his face into the crock of his neck.

Dean tried to breathe as calmly as possible but the two poisons inside him were already in battle and his whole body screamed in agony. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his heartbeats which were gently slowing down even though he felt more alive than ever, he knew what that meant, he'd been through it before. He knew that the following twenty four hours would be torturous. But he knew he could make it, because Benny was there and he wasn't going to make him fall.

"Thank you," he whispered and placed a soft kiss on Benny's ice cold skin.


End file.
